Chuma Sopotela & Ahmed Tobasi

Let's talk about sex: the beginning of warFrom Palestine with Love to South Africa

photo: Urska Boljkovac

With whom do we have sex, and why? What are our preferences and phantasies? What happens when we confide our deepest thoughts and desires to our permanent partner, to a temporary lover, or a total stranger? Why not enhance our relations through sex, so that everyone would feel strengthen and no-one weak? What makes sex amusing again?

These and similar questions are being asked in this performance to investigate the ways and modes in which religious and cultural milieu delineate our experience of sex and, on the other hand, the ways in which sex can influence our culture and religious beliefs.

All humans share a desire to express emotions and love, as well as a need and appetite for power and authority. All of these have been apparent in a distinctive feature of human history: war. And also, in everyman's daily life. The act in which we show our deepest feelings and needs, the act in which many people enjoy, but some also suffer, is sex. These parallels suggest that sex can help to uncover the reasons for war...

Such reflections inspired Chuma Sopotela and Ahmed Tobasi at the first 1Space laboratory held in Palestine in May 2014. With the assistance of artists Gregor Luštek, Borut Bučinel and Davor Sanvincenti the show will attain its final form in October 2016 during the artists' residence in Ljubljana and the Istrian village of San Vincenti. The premiere will take place in the Španski Borci Culture Centre at the beginning of November 2016.